One more folk night

Our reason for staying one more day on the mooring at Skipton was another evening with the folk club. A singers' night again, but with a very different line-up to a fortnight ago. The photos suffer from the action / low-light combination, but they serve to illustrate what was served up.

Harriet and Howard sang the blues – but the sort to make you laugh rather than cry.

Peter and Nicholas were father and son from Germany who performed really well together – a range of music including the odd jig and reel thrown in. I wasn't aware that Germans would even know what a banjo was, let alone how to use it for tunes from the Celtic fringe, but it transpired that Peter is actually English.

And then there was mine host, whose name, I realised sadly as we came away, I had not learned. He has a magic touch on the accordion, and a rich voice to go with it. It occurs to me that I haven't seen many accordion players accompanying their own singing, but this was a real treat.

Among the other contributors was a woman from a Romany background who writes her own poetry, her husband who plays guitar and a mean blues harp, and a woman who sang a couple of her own songs, including a very moving number about a girl she'd been involved with as a social worker. I got to sing some songs as well, though the voice was not exactly in top form.

That's probably it for us at Skipton unplugged. We'll be four miles down the cut with the children next Monday. I think we're going to miss this welcoming bunch of folks.